Chords for Harmony with June - Episode 3: Reharmonization (overview)

_ What's up guys, welcome to the third episode of Harmony with Jun.
Today's topic is reharmonization.
Let's get right into it.
_ There are four elements of reharmonization. _
First, you need a melody.
_ _ Second, you need a bassline, which is basically another melody. _ _
Third, you need inner voices.
_ _ Fourth, you need a method of voice leading.
_ Let's take a closer look at each element.
_ While it's okay to add ornamentation to the melody,
_ _ _ _ _ [Bm] _ _ [F] _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
[B] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ it's usually a bad idea to alter the melody so it fits certain harmonic concepts.
_ For bassline, because you have to hit the roots of certain chords, it's going to have bigger leaps than the melody.
Still, you should always aim to make it as melodic as possible, keeping in mind where your starting and ending points are.
_ Now let's talk about inner voices.
The inner voices combined with the melody and the bass create what's called voicings.
The knowledge of voicings can be compared to your jazz vocabulary, like this well-known 2-5-1 lick.
The more voicings you know, the more flexible you will be in utilizing them.
For example, to fill the missing parts of this score, with knowledge of jazzy chords, you might do something like this. _ _ _
_ _ [N] _ Or this. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ With some experience in modern harmony, you might write something like this.
[Em] _ _ [G#] _
_ _ _ _ Or this.
[F] _
_ _ _ _ _ If you've spent the last six months transcribing Jacob Collier, you might come up with something like this.
_ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ [B] _
_ [A] _ _ [F#] _ _ [G#] _ _ _
[Em] _ _ _ [B] _ _ [F#] _ _ [F] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Now let's discuss voice leading.
_ Knowing many voicings is like having a large vocabulary.
However, nothing you say will make sense unless you use proper grammar.
In this [G#] sense, voice leading is like the grammatical structure of harmony.
Let's compare two versions of a popular song, In My Room, the original by The Beach Boys and an arrangement by Jacob.
Pay close attention to the harmony and the inner voices.
_ _ [B] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ [B] _ _ _ [G#m] _ _
In [C#] my room.
_ _ _ [B] _
_ Now it's dark and _
_ [G] _ [C#] I'm alone [A] but
I [E] _ [C] won't be
[F#] _ [B] afraid.
[C] _ _ _ _ [G#m] _ _ [C#] _ _
_ _ _ _ With some experience in voice leading, you'll be able to separate the upper and lower structure of chords [F#] and have them move in different directions.
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ [F] _ _ _ [E] _ _ [D] This technique is especially useful in creating polychords, but that's a topic for another whole episode.
Now let's apply these concepts to Jacob Collier's Hideaway. _ _ _ _ _
[F#m] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ [G] _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ [E] You know [Bm] that my love is true.
[E] _ _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [F#m] _
_ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ Whichever way the wind may blow.
_ _ [F] _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Let's look at a few more examples.
Here's a melody of a well-known Christmas song about a tree.
I wrote a bass line consisting of mostly semitones and whole [C] tones.
Here's what it sounds like. _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _ [E] _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ [C] And then I added inner voices to harmonize them.
_ _ _ [B] _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ [F#] _ _ [B] _ _
_ [A#] _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ [Am] _
_ _ _ _ This is another bass line I wrote which includes more leaps.
_ _ [Dm] _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ [F#m] _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ [G] _ Here's my reharmonization. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [C#m] _ _ _ _ [C#] _ _
_ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ [C] _ _
To make things more interesting, I used an online random number generating website to get 15 random numbers between 1 and 12.
I assigned each number with corresponding notes within the grammatic scale and then got a bass line that sounds like this.
_ _ _ [A#] _
_ [F#] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ [G#] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
Let's reharmonize, shall we?
[F] _ _ _ _
_ [G#] _ _ _ [D] _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ [F#] _ _ [A#m] [Em] The _ _ _ _ _ _ point I wanted to make is that anything is reharmonizable.
_ Thank you everyone for watching.
I hope you got something out of this video.
Happy [N] practicing! _